An example of article storage facilities such as one described above is disclosed in JP Publication of Application No. 2010-182747 (Patent Document 1). The article storage shelf with a purging function and provided in an article storage facility of Patent Document 1 includes a plurality of storage units for storing transporting containers such as FOUPs, etc. for housing semiconductor wafers. And the facility is configured to supply inactive gas, such as nitrogen gas or gaseous argon, to each of the storage units by means of inactive gas feed passages and to discharge the inactive gas to the interior of each transporting container with a discharge portion.
In the facility disclosed in Patent Document 1, the inactive gas is injected into the interior of the transporting container through the discharge portion when a transporting container is stored in a storage unit to discharge oxygen gas, vapor, etc. that have negative effects on the substrates out of the transporting container and to fill the interior of the transporting container stored in the storage unit with the inactive gas. This reduces the occurrences of negative effects, such as oxidization etc., on the substrates stored in the transporting container.
With the article storage facility of Patent Document 1 described above, however, the transporting container continues to be stored in the same storage unit even if the inactive gas is not properly supplied to the storage unit due to damage to an inactive gas feed passage or failure of, for example, a device such as a pressure adjusting valve provided in an inactive feed passage. Thus, the environment in a transporting container worsens if the inactive gas is not properly supplied to its storage unit, because, for example, the ambient air flows into the transporting container, allowing negative effects on the substrates in the transporting container to occur.